Discovery and Excavation of the Moundville Earth Lodge
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Discovery and Excavation of the Moundville Earth Lodge VernonJames Knight Department ofAnthropology University ofAlabama Box 870210 Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 ABSTRACT: Archeological investigations during 1999-2002 of the summit of Mound V at the Moundville site, Alabama, revealed a pair of large building foundations of single-set post construction conjoined by a tunnel entranceway defined by wall trenches. The more elaborate of the two buildings was square in plan and had extraordinarily large roof sup ports and an external embankment ofclay. It is an example of the kind ofbuilding called earth lodges elsewhere in the Southeast, a form previously unknown at Moundville. I discuss the discovery, excavation, architectural details, and evidence for dating these buildings to the Moundville III phase at ca. AD 1400-1500. INTRODUCTION Moundville, in west-central Alabama, is the largest of excavations at Mound V were by Clarence Moore in 1905 the Mississippian ceremonial centers in the Deep South, (1905:141-142), who devoted "eighteen trial holes and 150 with more than 30 mounds arranged around a central feet of narrow trench" to the summit surface, finding no plaza (Knight and Steponaitis 1998:2-6). We are con burials and few artifacts of interest to him. He did note cerned here with architectural remains recently found the presence of near-surface midden, a detail that was on the summit ofMound V at Moundville Archaeological important to us, as it suggested a residential use. A photo Park. Because it is not possible to address every aspect graph taken from an airplane in April, 1938 of a Four-H of these remains in this paper, I will concentrate on an Club outing to the Park (Figure 2) shows Mound V re account of the discovery and an outline of the main ar cently cleared ofvegetation by the Civilian Conservation chitectural elements. Corps. Its angular features are relatively well preserved. A Mound V is a broad, rectangular artificial platform close inspection ofthe photo, however, shows signs ofero that adjoins the northern margin ofMound B, the tallest sion and gullying near the center. As with other mounds mound at Moundville (Figure 1). It is probably legitimate in the Park, the platform was to some degree "restored" to think of Mound V as an apron of Mound B, intimately in the late 1930s. Since then, about two dozen trees have associated with the dominant mound. Mound V measures been allowed to grow up on the summit while the area about 140 by 70 meters in basal dimension, and is approx between them has been maintained in grass by mowing, imately 2.5 m thick in the main area of our work, near resulting in a pleasantly shaded park-like area. the northeast corner of the summit. The importance of Ourwork at Mound V came at the tail end ofa te11-"\i'ear the space is signaled by the fact that one of Mound B's run of field work called the Moundville Public Architec two ramps ascends directly from the Mound V platform ture Project, aided by grants from the University of Ala on the north, the other from the east. The only previous bama and National Science Foundation, and abetted by Bull. Alabama Mus. Nat. Rist. 27:20-28 November 30, 2009 VernonJames Knight Discovery and Ecavation of the Moundville Earth Lodge 21 ~.J ( ) ~V10U"d Location of I ~ o D I Mound V Excavations l \~'f" ~.''f, ~ L.\ ~ ........ Figure 1. Detail from map of Moundville, showing relationship of Mound V to Mound B in the northern area of the site. the Alabama Museum of Natural History. The project's the dominant mound at the site. In both instances our aims were to provide a construction chronology for the intent was for the testing to be just sufficient to add to earthworks by flank trenching Mounds Q, R, E, F, and G, the site's construction chronology and to give us some and to investigate suggestions of differences in summit indication ofuse, by intercepting summit architecture or use through extensive horizontal exposure on Mounds by recovering artifact assemblages from midden or fea Q and E. Our original research design also called for ture fill contexts. The Mound A work was completed in limited testing of two intriguing components of the site the fall season of 1996, leaving only the Mound V testing, layout, (a) Mound A in the center of the plaza, and (b) which was scheduled for the fall of 1999. In anticipation the Mound V platform, with its curious relationship to of the work on the Mound V summit, certain of my Me soamericanist colleagues confidently predicted that the platform supported an elite residential compound. That suggestion was speculative, but it did not seem unlikely, given the northerly location at the site and the associa tion with Mound B, that Mound V was elite real estate of some sort. THE EXCAVATIONS OF 1999-2002 Devoting the University of Alabama's annual fall se mester field school to this work (Figure 3), we established a grid and began the 1999 season with two identical 6 by 1.5 meter trenches (Figure 4), oriented north and south, placed in the center of the platform near where the Mound B northern ramp converged. We found that the near-surface deposits here were loosely consolidated, full Figure 2. Aerial photograph of Mounds B and V, taken of coarse sand and pea-sized gravel, unlike mound fill. from a position over the plaza, April, 1938, showing Potsherds were scarce. It soon became clear that in both Mound V cleared of The occasion is a 4-H trenches we were digging through a layer of restoration Club outing. fill, trucked in by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 22 BULLETIN 27 November 30,2009 Figure 4. One of two 1.5 by 6 m trenches dug in the Figure 3. University of Alabama Department of central portion of Mound V during fall, 1999. The one Anthropology Field school, Mound V, fall semester 1999. shown here was located near the base of the north ramp ofMoundB. Figure 6. Alabama Museum of Natural History Expedition 23, Moundville site, June 2001. This was one of four Expedition 23 crews, consisting primarily of high school students. Figure 5. Trench in the northeast sector of the Mound V summit at the end of the 1999 season, showing multiple partially excavated features. late 1930s to level and restore the eroded center portion ofthe mound. Recognizing this, we abandoned these two trenches and used a I-inch split core auger to prospect for intact deposits elsewhere on the summit. Finding a promising locality on the northeast section, we set up a third trench measuring 10 by 1.5 meters, and spent the rest of the 1999 term excavating it. Here, just below the Figure 7. Extent of Mound V excavations at the end of the humus we encountered numerous intact features of vari summer 2001 season, with Alabama Museum of Natural ous kinds (Figure 5). It was impossible to excavate and History Expedition 23 crew. VernonJames Knight Discovery and Ecavation of the Moundville Earth Lodge 23 .78R138 Key exterior berm, Structure 1 ~O~~iiiiiOi..E2~~3 main wall posts, roof supports, meters and entrance trenches shallow dugouts surrounding wall posts and entrance trenches entrance wall trenches fired clay floor remnants superficial excavations Structure 1 clay berm Figure 8. Plan of excavated area, northeast summit of Mound V, showing features associated with Structure 1 (the earth lodge) and adjacent Structure 2, with connecting tunnel entranceway bounded by wall trenches. record all of these in the remaining time, so I chose to field school to excavating pits and post holes within the devote a second fall semester field school to this effort area already opened, completing the record of plan and in the year 2000, excavating previously exposed features profile drawings, and collecting additional samples. This and expanding the 1999 trench in two places to the east work, which was undertaken in the fall of 2001, was pri and west. By the end of the second season, however, we marily in the floor area ofthe embanked structure. These were still left with unsolved puzzles. We had uncovered tasks, however, proved greater than I anticipated, which parts of what seemed to be a much larger architectural meant devoting yet another field school to the same work whole that could not be interpreted from our narrow ex in the fall of2002, after which we could finally bring clo cavation window. sure to the excavations with some understanding of the Not wishing to abandon this effort with so little under deposits. standing ofit, I decided that we needed to continue with In this manner, after five episodes ofexcavation spread a larger effort. Fortunately, a large crew was available in over four years, we had exposed the architecture shown the annual Expedition program ofthe Alabama Museum in plan view in Figure 8. To the west, we have the north of Natural History (Figure 6). I had worked with this or east corner of a building surrounded by a massive earth ganization before, and it suited our needs (and theirs) embankment, featuring heavy roofsupports and a tunnel perfectly. Over a period of four weeks in the summer of entranceway-characteristics identified in the past with 2001, with an average crew size ofabout 30 per day, we ex buildings called "earth lodges" in the Southeast. To the panded horizontally (Figure 7), primarily to the west but east, we had intercepted portions of the west and north also to the east and south. By the second week it became walls of a second building, directly connected to the first clear that we had uncovered portions of two adjoining by the entranceway.